THE GENERAL COUNCIL  TO  ALL THE MEMBERS
OF THE  INTERNATIONAL  WORKING  MEN ’S
ASSOCIATION 381
Citizens,
The General Council finds itself under the necessity of
publicly denouncing to you the existence, within the International, of intrigues which, although in full work for several years past, have never been even suspected by the
majority among you.
In our private circular dated 5th March 1872, on “the
pretended divisions within the International”,* we were
compelled to call your attention to the manoeuvres of the
so-called “Alliance of Socialist Democracy”, manoeuvres
aiming at the creation of discord in our ranks, and at the
handing over, in an underhand manner, of the supreme
direction of our Association to a small clique directed by
Michael Bakounine.
The Alliance of Socialist Democracy, you will recollect,
published, at its very origin, a set of rules which, if we
had sanctioned them, would have given it a double existence, within and without the International at the same
time. It would have had its own sections, federations and
congresses at the side of the sections, federations and congresses of the International, and yet it pretended to take
part in the latter. Its aim was to supersede our General

Rules by the special programme of M. Bakounine and to
force upon our Association his personal dictatorship.
The General Council, by its circular of the 22 December
1868, repelled these pretentions.382 It admitted the Alliance
of Socialist Democracy into the International on the express condition only, that it should cease to be an international body; that it should dissolve its organisation; that
its sections should enter simply as local sections. These
conditions were formally accepted by the Alliance. But of
all its pretended sections, only the Central Section of Geneva entered into our Association. The others remained a
mystery to the General Council, thus leaving it under the
impression that they did not exist.
And now, three years later, we are put in possession of
documents which prove irrefragably that this same Alliance
of Socialist Democracy, in spite of its formal promise, has
continued and does continue to exist as an international
body within the International, and that in the shape of a
secret society; that it is still directed by M. Bakounine;
that its ends are still the same, and that all the attacks
which for the last twelve months have been directed apparently against the London Conference and the General
Council, but in reality against the whole of our organisation, have had their source in this Alliance. The same men
who accuse the General Council of authoritativeness without ever having been able to specify one single authoritative act on its part, who talk at every opportunity of the
autonomy of sections, of the free federation of groups;
who charge the General Council with the intention of forcing upon the International its own official and orthodox
doctrine and to transform our Association into a hierarchically constituted organisation—these very same men, in
practice, constitute themselves as a secret society with a
hierarchical organisation, and under a, not merely authoritative, but absolutely dictatorial leadership; they trample
under their feet every vestige of autonomy of sections and

federations; they aim at forcing upon the International, by
means of this secret organisation, the personal and orthodox doctrines of M. Bakounine. While they demand that
the International should be organised from below upwards,
they themselves, as members of the Alliance, humbly submit
to the word of command which is handed down to them
from above.
Need we say that the very existence of such a secret
society within the International is a flagrant breach of our
General Rules? These Rules know only one kind of members of the International, with rights and duties equal for
all; the Alliance separates them into two classes, the initiated and the profane, the latter destined to be led by the
first, by means of an organisation whose very existence is
unknown to them. The International demands of its adherents to acknowledge Truth, Justice and Morality as the
basis of their conduct; the Alliance imposes upon its adepts,
as their first duty, mendacity, dissimulation and imposture, by ordering them to deceive the profane Internationals
as to the existence of the secret organisation and to the
motives and ends of their own words and actions. The programme of the International is laid down in our Rules and
known to all; that of the Alliance has never been avowed
and is unknown up to this day.
The nucleus of the Alliance is in the federation of the
Jura. From it the watchword is issued which is taken up
and repeated immediately by the other sections and by
the newspapers belonging to the secret organisation. In
Italy, a certain number of societies are controlled by it.
These societies call themselves International sections, but
have never either demanded their admission, or paid any
contributions, or fulfilled any of the other conditions prescribed by our Regulations. In Belgium, the Alliance has a
few influential agents. In the South of France, it has several
correspondents, among them pluralists, who couple their
functions of correspondents to the Alliance with the office

of clerk to the inspector of police. But the country where
the Alliance is organised most effectively, and where it
has the most extended ramifications is Spain. Having managed to slip itself quietly and from the commencement
into the ranks of the Spanish Internationals, it has managed to control, most of the time, the successive Federal
Councils and Congresses. The most devoted Internationals
in Spain were induced into the belief that this secret organisation existed everywhere within our Association and that
it was almost a duty to belong to it. This delusion was
destroyed by the London Conference where the Spanish
delegate,*  himself a member of the Alliance, could convince
himself that the contrary was the fact, and by the lies and
violent attacks which, immediately afterwards, Bakounine
ordered his faithful flock to launch against the Conference
and the General Council. After a prolonged struggle within
the Alliance, those of its Spanish members who had more
at heart the International than the Alliance, retired from
the latter. Immediately they were assaulted by the most
atrocious insults and calumnies on the part of those who
remained faithful to the secret society. Twice they were
expelled from the local federation of Madrid, in open
violation of the existing regulations. When they proposed
constituting themselves as the “New Federation of Madrid”,383 the Federal Council refused its authorisation and
returned the contributions they had proffered. And here
we must state that out of eight members of that Federal
Council there are five (Vicente Rossell, Peregrin Montoro,
Severino Albarracin, Francisco Tomas, and Franco Martinez) whom we know to be members of the Alliance; it
is moreover likely that there are others besides these. Thus
the sections and local federations of Spain, so proud of
their autonomy, are led like a flock of sheep, without even
suspecting it, by secret orders sent from Switzerland, which

the Federal Council has to carry out without a murmur,
under penalty of being outlawed by the Alliance.
The Spanish Federal Council, in order to ensure the
election, as delegates for the Congress at The Hague, of
members of the Alliance, has sent to the sections and local
federations a private circular dated 7th July, in which it
calls upon them for an extraordinary contribution with
which to defray the expenses of the delegates, and moreover orders them, authoritatively, to vote for a certain
number of delegates, to be elected by the whole of the
Spanish Internationals; all voting papers to be sent to the
Federal Council which would ascertain the result of the
election. In this manner, the success of the candidates of
the Alliance was placed beyond all doubt. Moreover, the
Federal Council announced that it will draw up instructions by which the delegates elected shall be bound. As
soon as we had cognisance of this plot to have the
delegates of the Alliance sent to the Congress with the
money of the International, and had received, besides, the
proofs of the complicity of the Spanish Federal Council in
the manoeuvres of the secret society, we have summoned it,
on the 24th July:
1) To hand us in a list of all members of the Alliance
in Spain, with the designation of such offices as they may
hold in the International;
2) To institute an inquiry into the character and action
of the Alliance in Spain, as well as into its organisation and
its ramifications beyond the frontier;
3) To send us a copy of their private circular of July
7 th;
4) To explain to us how they reconciliated with their
duties towards the International, the presence, in the Federal Council, of at least three notorious members of the
Alliance;
5) To send a categorical reply by return.*

This reply could have been in our hands on the 1st
August at latest. But only on the 5th August we received
a letter dated Valencia, Aug. 1st (postmark illegible), in
which a reply was deferred under the pretence that the
members of the Council did not understand our letter which
was written in French, and that time was required to translate it. That same Council, in its letter of June 15th, had
requested us to send them our publications, etc., as much
as possible in French, they (the members of the Council)
being somewhat familiarised with that language! Thus the
pretence is false; all that is wanted is to make us lose
time while it is precious.
We are therefore under the necessity of denouncing to
all the members of the Association, and above all to the
Spanish Internationals, the Spanish Federal Council as
traitors towards the International Working Men’s Association. Instead of faithfully fulfilling the mandate entrusted
to them by the Spanish Internationals, they have made
themselves the organ of a society not only foreign, but
hostile to the International. Instead of obeying the General Rules and Regulations, and the resolutions of the General and Spanish Congresses, they obey to secret orders
emanating from M. Bakounine. The very existence of a
Federal Council composed, in its majority, of members of
a secret society foreign to the International, is a flagrant
violation of our General Rules.
These are, Citizens, the facts which we have to lay before
you before the elections for the Congress take place. For
the first time in the history of the working-class struggles,
we stumble over a secret conspiracy plotted in the midst
of that class, and intended to undermine, not the existing
capitalist regime, but the very Association in which that
regime finds its most energetic opponent. It is a conspiracy
got up to hamper the proletarian movement. Thus,
wherever we meet it, we find it preaching the emasculating
doctrine of absolute abstention from political action; and

while the plain profane Internationals are persecuted and
imprisoned over nearly all Europe, the valiant members
of the Alliance enjoy a quite exceptional immunity.
Citizens, it is for you to choose. What is at stake at this
moment, is neither the autonomy of sections, nor the free
federation of groups, nor the organisation from below upwards, nor any other formula equally pretentious and sonorous; the question today is this: Do you want your central
organs composed of men who recognise no other mandate
but yours, or do you want them composed of men elected
by surprise, and who accept your mandate with the resolution to lead you, like a flock of sheep, as they may be
directed by secret instructions emanating from a mysterious
personage in Switzerland?
To unveil the existence of this secret society of dupers,
is to crush its power. The men of the Alliance themselves
are not foolish enough to expect that the great mass of
the Internationals would knowingly submit to an organisation like theirs, its existence once made known. Yet there
is complete incompatibility between the dupers and those
who are intended for the dupes, between the Alliance and
the International.
Moreover, it is time once and for all to put a stop to
those internal quarrels provoked every day afresh within
our Association, by the presence of this parasite body.
These quarrels only serve to squander forces which ought
to be employed in fighting the present middle-class regime.
The Alliance, in so far as it paralyses the action of the
International against the enemies of the working class,
serves admirably the middle class and the governments.
For these reasons, the General Council will call upon
the Congress of The Hague to expel from the International
all and every member of the Alliance and to give the
Council such powers as shall enable it effectually to prevent
the recurrence of similar conspiracies.